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Luctor 544 in Lego with 3-axle gooseneck dump trailer . Luctor, now in Lego! I built this 450 HorsePower tractor/truck- approved for highway- as a scale model. The Luctor is developed by the Dutch company Veldhuizen Wagenbouw.
Please rate or comment if you think it's nice. . The movie
I'm not quite a modelling fan but when I saw the Luctor driving around my house, it was completely different. In reality, the Luctor is a complete new vehicle. In the eyes of the law, it is a truck. In the eyes of a farmer, it is a very powerful tractor. It is approved for the highway for driving at 80 kph (50mph). It is used for towing a 55 m3 grass harvester, so consuming a lot of power. (if you calculate it with corn: 39 tonnes only corn) But with its 450 (!) horsepower FPT engine, everything is ready for a smooth ride. Because it is officially a truck, it should have a large lorry bumper at the front with all the lights in it and and antilock brakes. It has all this fancy stuff, but what you don't see on the photos is the enormity of this thing. The rear wheels have an height of 2.05 metres! And yes, it costs ~€200,000...
Now, after half a year of building, I present the Lego Luctor on Mocpages.com. The Luctor is fully remote controlled by the Power Functions system. It has a 2-speed manual gearbox and 2 XL-motors for drive. The XL-motors are not geared down so much, so it has a pretty high speed for a Lego vehicle. You can not supply all this power at an instant to the gearbox, though it is the strongest gearbox I ever built. In fact, it was so strong that the gears are wearing off and getting white! To not add the power at an instant, I used the speed remote control kit. This added 10 gears to the model and it worked very well.
Furthermore, the Luctor had the honour to be my first steering servo MOC. It made my Luctor very agile and precise and I think this motor is a very useful addition to the PF assortiment, but there's an if: only if you manage to use it in the right way and at the right place. First it was at the wrong place, then I redid the Luctor completely and it was still in the wrong place, then I took almost the complete Luctor apart again and eventually, it was in the right place.
The Luctor has a working 6-piston boxer motor and realistic light, including a light dividing system the cabin top and PF lights at very difficult places. Later more about that.
The reason why it had to be so powerful, is the photo below: it has to tow this >3kg gooseneck dump trailer. The name 'gooseneck' refers to the special shape of connecting it to the towing vehicle.
To tow this beast, the Luctor had to switch to the lower gear (still quite fast) and go for it. The dump trailer can be hitched onto the Luctor via remote control, which was for me a very new building experience. I had to design a hitching system that is very strong and very small because the Luctor is not a very wide vehicle: it has the minimum width you can make it to have steering and this Unimog wheels on it. For this reason, it didn't have suspension in the Luctor: it would simply have got too wide. The hitch also had to be smooth because from a distance you cannot see if you are excactly above i.e. 4 friction pins. With the final system I had, it was very easy to hitch it onto: smooth Technic parts slided into smooth holes in such a way that, in case they were not right above the holes, it would stil 'search' for the center of the hole so hitching is always possible. To add a nice safety feature, I also managed to mount a safety lock onto it, which is very realistic.
When the 69 cm-long trailer is tipped, the upper part of the bin reaches 57 centimeters. The rear door is folding in 2 parts due to a special self-invented mechanical system to enable a faster unloading speed. To lift up the huge weight of the giant bin, 4 Linear Actuators are placed in a special configuration and driven by an L-motor. Even the L-motor was struggling at some times! From here, you can see how thin the gooseneck actually is. It was quite a challenge to create a gooseneck of only 2 studs thick and sturdy enough to withstand the enormous mechanical stresses from the weight of the bin. The trailer has 2 steering axles with a different steering lock.
The photo above shows the length of the total combination. When tipping the dump trailer, the length of the total combination will increase from 94 cm to 1.03 metres, which is my personal record for the longest MOC I ever built.
The gooseneck. Made as sturdy as possible with many 3x5 liftarms. It was really a challenge to make the safety lock in between those havily reinforced Technic beams.
On the real Luctor, twin tires are not yet ready, but why not do it in Lego? What about a 2013 Big Bud?
Why is the Luctor 544 also called 'Hovertrack'? It has many Hovertrack parts or experience in it, I suppose. The idea of the good old Hovertracks was making a half-track from a truck. By "Hovertracking" it, my Luctor has now the sturdy looks of a Case IH 440 STX...
My Luctor and dump trailer are not quite medium-sized compared a Lego minifigure(see the movie) but this picture takes the meaning of the word 'compare' to a higher level.
The scale, based on the wheelbase, is ~1:17,5.
Some details
Based on a very well-known source, I can tell you that the flat six was a good choice to build into my Luctor. It was the only option left, even with the quite large bonnet: below this boxer motor the steering servo is mounted.
The speed control for the Luctor. This option of turning a wheel forwards instead of sidewards worked very well. I got used to it very fast.
This photos shows the IR recievers. From here, the tightness of the Luctor is clear.
The cabin roof has a light dividing system and is lit by one PF light set. It gave quite a lot of light, as you can see in the image below.
The truck bumper at the front has a thickness of under 2 studs, but it had to be very strong and contain PF leds. The rear mudguards of the Luctor also have working rear lights, as you can see below.
The cabin was quite detailed, with many levers, seat, steering wheel with indicator switch and gauges.
The gears in the Luctor. The gearchange is explained.
The steering is the tightest possible to have at least working steering and 4WD. With those large and grippy Unimog tires, the Luctor towed even an >10 kgs children car. It can be seen in the movie.
Summary
Luctor
Remote control drive, 2 XL motors
Remote control servo motor steering
Remote control 2-speed gearbox, 1 m-motor
Remote control front bumper lights, cabin roof lights, rear mudguard lights, 3 PF LED
Powered by rechargeable battery box
Four wheel drive, turning radius 94 cm
Working flat six fake engine
Opening bonnet
Opening cabin door
Adjustable mirrors
Gooseneck dump trailer
Remote control tipping of the bin
Remote control parking jacks
Remote control 2 rear axle steering with different steering lock, synchronized with Luctor steering by 5th IR Receiver
Remote control enable/disable trailer steering for easier driving backwards
Remote control safety lock
Rear door of the bin opens in 2 parts to increase unloading speed
Working rear lights
Separate electrical system, so the trailer has the ability to unload when you are far away.
The real Luctor has 4-wheel steering, mine has, for strength reasons, only front wheel steering. However, my Luctor has a turning radius of 94 cm and the real one does it in 19 meters. When scaled, my Luctor would have in reality a turning radius of 0.94*17,5=16.5 meters which is still better.
Costs
Orange parts are quite expensive. Also the yellow flat panels used for the trailer are quite expensive. By now, the value of the has decreased because of the 4 present in the 42009 crane but by the time I built the trailer they cost €7,50 each. My dump trailer ate 24 of them, so it's worth €180 only if you consider the yellow panels. That's the whole 42009 crane! Lego Technic is an expensive hobby...
Additional photos of Luctor with trailer
The bin has a volume of 53x14x12 = 8.9 litres. If you scale that with 17,5^3 (3D) then the volume is 47 m3.
Additional photos of the Luctor
Many thanks to Veldhuizen Wagenbouw for giving me the right figures about the Luctor, for providing stickers and lending me the Luctor for one afternoon!